Monterey

This historic town of Spanish and Mexican heritage was the first capital of California. Monterey's Cannery Row, once the Sardine Capital of the World, was immortalized by John Steinbeck and the now famous waterfront area houses the popular Monterey Bay Aquarium, the elegant Monterey Plaza Hotel and touristy Wharf #1 with its fish-mongers and purveyors of steaming clam chowder served in crusty French bread bowls, freshly pulled taffy candy and whale-watching trips. Its many residential areas include homes from cottages, to ranch-style family homes, to easy-care condos to hillside villas with incredible bay and ocean vistas.

 

Monterey is equally renowned for its beautifully rugged, rocky coastline as it is for being the home of a collection of literary luminaries of the past. The wonderfully scenic city is positioned at the southern end of California's Monterey Bay and has become well-known for the diversity of the marine life along its shores and further out into the Pacific. Visitors and locals regularly spot dolphins and sea lions, not to mention pelicans, harbor seals and sea otters along the docks of Fisherman's Wharf.